


fragile, handle with care

by kuro49



Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU
Genre: Developing Relationship, Ghost Sex, Grieving Bruce Wayne, M/M, Making Out with your dead son
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-05
Updated: 2021-03-05
Packaged: 2021-03-17 18:02:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,865
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29845380
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kuro49/pseuds/kuro49
Summary: If asked to imagine what it is like to be with the dead, Bruce wouldn’t have been able to saylike this.
Relationships: Jason Todd/Bruce Wayne
Comments: 12
Kudos: 63





	fragile, handle with care

**Author's Note:**

  * For [elareine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/elareine/gifts).



> written for my tumblr 1k+ followers giveaway.... from like three months ago 😔 
> 
> thank you to elareine for your eternal patience while i figured out the logistics of ghost-sex, my only regret is that i really wish i could've added waaaaay more of your kinks given how great they are. i still hope you will like this without them because i just had the best time writing this 💖💖💖

1.

From this high up in Wayne Tower, midday in Gotham can almost pass off as Metropolis. Spots of white in the distance of a brilliantly bright sky, the sight is only missing a blur of righteous red and blue from where he is sitting at the head of the boardroom table on the eighty-first floor.

Here is what he knows: Surprises are for the night time when he is in the worst parts of Gotham, fighting not to deter crime but fighting for his life. Surprises are not for the middle of his third scheduled meeting of the day, cutting short a presentation about projected revenues from his director of finance. Bruce is mid-nod when he sees him again.

The same boy he's buried barely a month ago.

And Bruce couldn't mistaken him for anyone else even if he actively tried.

Like a mirage just out of reach, through the reflection from the floor to ceiling glass walls in combination with the glare from the too-bright sun, there is Jason in his favourite red hoodie, worn and frayed at the cuffs, drawstrings chewed out at the ends. It is all the right details in all the wrong places. Jason is in the space between the neat line of cubicles across the hall, walking across the shiny polished floors, getting further still until he is turning the corner.

Exiting out of sight like all of this is his stage.

"—re you alright... Mr. Wayne?"

Bruce is a self-aware man. He knows he is many things but delusional has never been one of them. Not unless he's under the influence of fear toxins again, and he knows for a fact that he hasn't been dosed. He can prove it too when his watch flashes with a negative result from the near-instantaneous blood toxicology test he runs on himself with a quick slice of his thumb against a sample needle from the secret compartment of the same watch.

"I," he turns back to the presentation that seems to have been put on pause for his benefits, catching sight of the row of confused faces on his directors focused all on him. He chuckles instead, waving off their concern. "I'm quite alright," Bruce tells them and goes as far as to lean back in his chair, touches a hand to his temple for their sake, his smile easy and good-natured, "just still a little bit hungover from last night."

They do not take much convincing at all to carry on.

Like there is nothing out of the ordinary.

And if Bruce is the only one alive to know that it took all of his willpower alone to sit through the entire duration of the meeting, then he can live with that. Nobody else has to know that he left the meeting room walking double time. Not a soul can tell that he sits down at his desk in his own office with lead in his limbs while his hands are visibly shaking as he logs into his own private back door server to the main frame of Wayne Enterprise's security system.

It takes him less than an hour to comb through every frame of the four separate cameras that covered that section of the eighty-first floor.

The sky is too blue, the sun too bright, Bruce doesn't find the boy he knows he saw.

He should've known better.

2.

In the middle of the Manor after dark, Bruce knows the exact steps it takes from the top of the stairs in the Cave to his bedroom door.

He's walked it as a child when the grandfather clock in the study still ticked and he would spend all afternoon by his father's desk while the man worked. He's walked it as an adult, day in and day out as he tried to actualize what will become the Batman's headquarters. In the years after, he's even walked it on crutches enough times to really have the way cemented in the very fabric of his existence.

The halls do not look any less daunting when there are ghosts at every turn. His parents' portrait by the staircase, his grandparents' in the main foyer, and all of his ancestors that came before hanging all along the walls where there's room. It's a big house, a manor on a hilly estate, but it feels like they are running out of space when he still can't quite find the right spot for a picture of Jason among the rest.

If this is just about grief, then he’s done this before. But it hardly feels the same.

Bruce walks the same path tonight. Again, like most nights. He is on the second floor landing when he sees something different.

There is no red hoodie this time around. But it's Jason all the same. There is no mistaking it when that's Jason standing at the end of the hall where Bruce's bedroom is.

He is right by the door, his hand on the knob.

He is wearing an oversized Batman t-shirt, the one he bought Bruce with his first allowance because he didn't know what else he should do with this much money. He also thought that it'd be a little bit funny to see the boss in his own merchandise. It was the same shirt that Bruce entertained once before he forgot all about it. Only to have it resurfaced with a vengeance when Jason paraded it around the Manor wearing it himself. It was too big for him but the kid loved it all the same, wore it day in and day out and even left it neatly folded with the emblem on top on the bench in the Cave's changing room so he could wear it again as soon as he washed himself of the grime and filth of Gotham clinging all over Robin from patrol.

Bruce remembers it all, the details coming to life. 

Bruce can't be imagining it, not with the way Jason is blinking at him like he's seeing him again for the first time in a very long time. The Manor is old, the walls groan and the floorboards creak but doors do not open on their own. Maybe the dead doesn't have to stay dead either as he watches Jason's wrist turns.

It's simple cause and effect when Bruce's bedroom door opens on silent hinges.

"Master Wayne."

Bruce doesn't startle easily, it takes a lot. But he does, here, jostling just as Alfred touches a hand carefully to his arm. The old man's face is alarmed even when he hides it well but his eyes aren't focused on what is no longer there at the end of the same hall.

Alfred's gaze is only on Bruce. 

"Did you—" Bruce stops because he doesn't know how to continue. He is barely twenty paces to his bedroom door. "I'm just—" He can make it there in three seconds tops. He knows what he saw, he can also see the clear worry in the lines all over Alfred's face. He isn't the only one who can teach a master class in mourning. Bruce lifts his hand and touches it to Alfred's, his voice soft. "I was just debating whether to go downstairs for a glass of water, that's all."

Alfred is not convinced, not by a stretch.

Bruce doesn't expect him to, the man has known him for longer than Jason has lived. He is banking on Alfred's kindness not to go digging when Bruce himself can't even be sure of what he's buried.

"If that's all," Alfred answers because the man has always been tolerant, has always allowed Bruce to keep his own secrets until they come spilling out of him, "then you'll be glad to know that I left you a glass by your bedside table like I've been doing for the last few decades, Master Bruce."

Bruce is looking down at an empty hallway save for the two of them. 

"Thank you, Alfred."

The butler lets him go with a faint noncommittal sound. Bruce walks those twenty paces as Alfred's gaze settles heavily on his back.

It's a big house, it's an empty home.

Bruce steps through to face an equally empty room.

3.

With each night feeling like a death match at every turn, patrol is not quite the same when Batman isn't being called off by his partner like a rabid dog off his leash.

Batman is a little bit unhinged, or so the word on the street goes.

Dislocated jaws are now shattered ones when each hit come down against the body hard and fast and punishing.

There isn't the surprise where it ought to when Batman comes to with the halting shout of a GCPD officer rolling up on the scene of a convenient store robbery. The suspect near unconscious. There isn’t a shred of panic when Bruce registers the broken hand still in his vice grip. Except there is only a vicious twisting sense of anger low in his gut that spreads through to expand into his chest when he sees the young clerk still in shock sitting there at the back of the ambulance.

It's penance, where he cannot be the final blow.

But he forgets that.

In the grand scheme of Gotham’s very particular brand of horror, this doesn’t come close to being anything at all. 

Instead, Bruce's head is simply filling with every conceivable explanation, and he would’ve accepted anything from an apparition to a fragment of his fractured imagination. Hell, he will even take some kind of premonition without question. It’s for the best, he keeps thinking, like there isn’t one explanation above all. 

That he might just be losing it. 

And really, he goes on to think, the thought echoing loudly inside his head, is that really so bad?

It is the dead of night, and Gotham’s worst is only beginning to stir. He is standing at the dead end of the alleyway, one of Joker’s goons crumpled at his feet. Batman is mid-swing, one arm raising above his head, splashes of bright red cascading thickly from his gauntlets as he hears it: A robin’s call.

When Batman looks up, he sees Jason.

The first two times he can call it many things, a mistake, a coincidence, a decision, among many other choice words. But a third time makes it a pattern, and this time, it’s Robin too. He is crouched at the edge, both arms resting on his bare knees, his black hair messy from the wind where the curls sweeps thickly over the top of his domino mask.

By the time Batman makes it up on the edge where Robin made his perch, Jason has already made it exactly two blocks worth of rooftops in distance.

It’s no time to think, it’s a visceral reaction to that magnetic pull. Of needing to know. 

And Batman gives chase with that cemented in his mind. 

He crosses each rooftop with all the familiarity of a man that has been doing this for years, but Robin has never once stopped moving either. They head into the east end of Gotham, Batman following with Robin in the lead. Bruce hones in on the glimmer of green in those boots kicking off from the ledge, the same colour in his gloves and his shorts following through with that jump. From this far away, the flickering yellow of Robin’s cape could be a beacon in the night. 

To the very end of the line, Jason is guided by something that only he can see.

Bruce might just be losing it, but there’s something comforting in knowing that this is what breaks him. 

When they stop, it’s a standstill on a nondescript rooftop just like a hundred other ones all around them. Robin hops up and sits down on the raised ledge of the flat roof. Jason faces Bruce, swinging his legs, and it takes all of Bruce's self-control not to simply rush forward, closing that distance between them until he's got Jason back in his arms. Where he is warm, not cold. Safe, not hurt. 

Where he is _alive_. Once more.

It doesn’t feel like a lot to ask. 

“Jason.”

Just one word, and this alone already breaks his own cardinal rule. But to even say Jason’s name out loud like this feels a lot like he’s breaking a rule he didn’t even know he’s made for himself. Bruce thinks Jason would’ve liked that. Jason always liked it when Bruce broke a rule or ten, _loved_ it when it was done for him. 

The blank lenses of Robin’s domino mask tracks him as he steps close, one heavily measured step after another, silent in his entirety. There is a stillness to this Robin that Jason never had. Bruce doesn’t give consideration to the thought though. To the potentiality that this Jason isn’t his Jason.

Not with Jason looking like he's waiting on Bruce to make the first move.

_What’s got you lookin’ so grim, boss?_

Of all the things to say to Bruce in death, this is not what Bruce thought Jason would say. He is watching Jason's mouth moving to form each word but the sound is coming from all around them. Those blank lenses remain opaque. Jason's lips curl back to show teeth, gleaming white and then a flash of tongue as he cocks his head to the side.

_You look like someone kicked your puppy right in front of you._

It’s not cruel, it’s not even close to being mean when Jason doesn't bring up the crowbar or the explosion or the dozen other little triggering things that were done to him during those hours when he was left all alone in that warehouse in Ethiopia with no one else but the fucking clown prince of Gotham to keep him company. If Jason is aiming to hurt, he could hurt Bruce in a hundred other different ways and leave much deeper scars.

What it is, it’s telling.

Bruce is attentive to every last detail, and this one is hardly subtle. 

Bruce is all shadows but Jason doesn’t cast one. 

Not even with the neon signage from across the street casting them into the light. Jason doesn’t wait for him to respond. The answer doesn't hold as much weight as the question asked. They are barely an arm’s reach apart when Jason follows through on that momentum as he swings his legs, tipping himself backwards. Dropping off from the ledge of the building.

That last step forward feels thundering. Bruce has his heart in his throat, his heart beating against the suit’s armoured plate as he makes the leap to follow—

There is not a speck of yellow or green or red for him to seize from mid-air as he is flying.

He reaches out and there is nothing. The trajectory of his flight arches to its highest point.

It is a long way to fall.

It knocks the very literal breath clean from him when he lands solidly on the fire escape of the opposite building with everything but stealth. Sharp burst of pain wherever he collided with brick and mortar and railing and jutting parts of the ladder. The sounds echo all the way down to the ground. Bruce groans deeply, and the shudder of the rusty metal all around him is just as loud.

He sprawls there stunned for a moment, the night is still dark overhead where the moon is gone and the stars have never existed above this city of his. The realization is a funny one when he finally gets a chance to look around. Because if this is a joke, then it’s a terrible one to make. He doesn’t know what he think, maybe if he should even think at all. Bruce finds himself laughing, loud and deep and true.

Crime Alley has not changed one bit. 

To have Jason go all this way just to bring him back to the start, reminding them both of their own origin stories with a second chance meeting in Crime Alley of all places, Bruce figures it is only fair that he does this too. He comes home to the Cave, and he makes his decision.

The first to go is the brass plaque. 

And then it’s the glass case.

He dismantles it methodically, one piece at a time. Alfred comes down to the Cave in the middle of his demolition project, stands there as Bruce cradles the burnt and bloodied uniform in both hands for a good long minute and then two. And Bruce is just that. He is Batman with just the cowl pulled back. 

“Can I be of any assistance, Master Bruce?” 

Even at his most steadfast, Alfred cannot repair the damage on this open wound. Not even the best surgeon could. There is no stopping this pain.

Bruce breathes in deeply, copper and ash, and it's like there is Jason’s body in his arms once more, weighing absolutely nothing at all. Bruce shakes his head at Alfred's question, setting Robin’s uniform gently into a box for safe keeping. 

It all appears like an act of letting go.

Really, it’s anything but.

4.

He’s in Armani, looking just as he should. A couple of strands of hair out of place, loose line in his shoulders, drink in one hand, and the widest brightest smile over his face for anyone that glances at him. He isn’t the star of the gala but he’s a headline all the same. He’s always going to be one when he’s Brucie Wayne. He is standing in a half circle, and the topic of choice is about a re-election. He’s not contributing to the conversation but they still look at him for his opinion like it should carry any weight at all. 

A light touch to his elbow and it’s a familiar voice by his side to say: “There you are.” 

Bruce stops, he turns, he sees Dick.

This is another bruise upon an old wound when it’s been months since he’s last seen his ward in any capacity that isn’t related to the mission. And apparently it shows even to the rest of the group. Enough to get Dick laughing lightly, waving them off like this is on par with normalcy.

Dick Grayson matches Brucie Wayne perfectly in his mannerism and charisma. 

“I know it’s been some time, Bruce. But you don’t have to look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

A simple excuse to catch up, an easy smile, and Dick is extricating Bruce from the rest of the group. 

“Sorry for surprising you like that.” They step away to stand on their own in the crowd. Dick has his hair swept back with gel, a light dusting of concealer along his jaw that Bruce wouldn’t be able to notice if he wasn’t the one to teach Dick the same application method. 

“It’s alright, Dick.” Bruce’s answer is wistful and unfair because Dick isn’t the only one that has been avoiding the calls. “If I knew you had time to come all this way to Gotham, I could’ve picked you up.”

Unsaid words upon unsaid words. 

Bruce wants to tell him that he himself is wrong in many things he’s done. 

“That’s okay, I can’t stay the night at the Manor anyways.” Dick replies, and there’s none of the usual anger. He isn’t here to pick up the last of their fights, he’s here for something a little different. Alfred’s request sitting like a particularly heavy weight, like anchors tied to his ankles keeping him from flight. “How’re you, Bruce?” 

What he really means to ask is: What’s wrong? 

Except that’s a loaded question cocked and aimed at Bruce’s chest. 

“Alfred could’ve just asked me directly if he’s worried.” 

“Would you tell him the truth if he did?” Dick cuts in, furrow in his brows. And it’s a whole other kind of anger to surface through when Bruce can’t even look him in the eye as he shuts down on the remaining people to care about him. Bruce has stared down the threat of global destruction and didn’t think to flinch. But the look of genuine concern clear on Dick’s face strips him to his soul, cutting straight down to bone.

And Bruce has always been too good at avoiding that.

“I—” Bruce starts, and over Dick’s shoulders, it’s Jason standing at the edge of the room looking right at him. He is standing by the double doors in what he’s only ever called his monkey suit. Black and white and the mismatched red bowtie he picked out for himself when Bruce and Alfred finally convinced him that he wasn't about to get out of this particular gala event. 

Bruce keeps all of his secrets close to heart.

And this is just one more. 

“—Sorry, Dick.” He says, rushed, his body in motion before he even registers that he’s taken any steps at all. He crosses the room, cutting in between the crowds of affluent people and around waitstaff balancing trays of hors d'oeuvre and champagne. 

Dick’s shout fading just as easily as everything else behind him. 

Bruce doesn’t become obsessive. That’s a lie.

But a man with hope in his heart even if it is an obsessive kind of hope is a man still alive.

Jason is watching him as he comes close. And Bruce is always barely an arm’s length away when Jason begins to move, turning the corner around the doors for Bruce to follow. He makes the same turn, step for step, and he steps into an empty hallway. 

The drop he feels in his gut _hurts_ like something physical. Bruce can’t describe it. Not with Jason as all he sees.

He follows the hallway down to the private guest washrooms, familiar with this venue almost as well as if it is his own home. Bruce locks the door behind him for a moment of privacy. Standing there at the sink until he can get the tremors from his hands to stop before he is splashing cold water over his face, trying to breathe through it. He can only lose Jason so many times. He is a vision, he is a dream, he is a ghost walking down hallways Bruce cannot follow.

He reaches over and takes a warm towel to press against his eyes. He doesn’t know how to treat a wound that doesn’t bleed or cure a disease with no symptoms. All he knows is how to suffer through the grief. One would think it gets easier with practice, and he’s had years and years of that. 

Bruce drops the towel into the basket and looks up at the mirror to see how much damage control is necessary to put Brucie Wayne back together once more.

Except it isn’t just Bruce himself looking back. That’s Jason’s reflection in the mirror next to his.

_So the great Bruce Wayne ain’t a fan of stuffy fancy events like these either._

A loud huff of a laugh and Bruce can almost feel the loose strands of his hair sway from the shift in the air where there’s a breeze. Bruce stands still, just watching through the mirror as Jason moves around him in this space where the dark tiles lining the walls create a mesmerizing pattern.

_You always could fool me._

His voice sounds wistful, echoing all around them in the private washroom. He doesn't accuse him of his lies or his half-truths or all the secrets he's kept for himself, it still sinks inside of Bruce all the way down to the marrow of his bones. Jason reminds him of his past mistakes, a whole host of them to end with them at this singular point in time.

Jason steps in between the sink and Bruce himself. His feet touching solid ground. He is real in the only way that matters when he sits up on the marble countertop in front of Bruce. The man can have all of these questions and all sorts of theories but the only thing that Bruce is still capable of breathing out is this: “Jaylad.”

In reverence. In acceptance.

In all the ways he knows as love.

As Jason leans in, touches his mouth to Bruce’s own, it is warm in place of something bone-shuddering cold.

His smile is not a tangible thing but the kiss feels a lot like one. 

5.

There are no flickering lights or hinges creaking in the dead of night. Everything on his bedside table stays exactly as he has left it. Nothing falls, nothing even shifts a millimeter out of place. Bruce doesn’t wake up from the rustling of the sheets or the pressure building upon his chest. 

He wakes up like a bursting shock. Static electricity. 

All ten points of it that gets him opening his eyes. They are bleary and bloodshot and far too dry. But Bruce cannot mistaken this for anything else even if he tried. It is Jason sitting up on top of him, his full weight the pressure over his heart. It is Jason peering down at him with those eyes of his. Bright and blue and wide with focus even in the dark that surrounds them. 

Both hands out, and Jason is cupping Bruce’s unshaven cheeks and scratchy jaw in his palms, like any of this is _just fine_.

There is a very real fear in all this, that Bruce can blink and Jason is gone. But Bruce lets himself say it out loud anyways, like every wish can be made as simple as this: “If this is a dream then I don’t ever want to wake up.” 

It's the first real thing he's allowed himself to say to this Jason.

Placing false hope on a false god, Bruce too can be made into a true believer if it means bringing Jason back to him. 

Jason laughs. The sound echoes all around them, from the dark corners of the room to the pitch black stretch of carpet underneath this bed, just not from Jason’s mouth even when it’s stretched out wide with mirth. It doesn't warp out of shape, doesn't even raise the hair on his arms. But that is what scares him because the laughter is every bit the same sound of unrestrained delight when Jason is truly happy.

_What’s the count then, on those sheep?_

The fear takes hold with a vice grip, knuckles white with strength, Bruce doesn't want this to end. Not when Jason is smiling, and it’s all so sweet. 

Jason leans down, closing the distance between them, pressing his mouth to his once more. It’s the same warmth. The kind that spreads to all over. Every brush of Jason’s mouth to his is laced with a tenderness that goes hand in hand with kindness unfitting of the dead. Bruce thinks Jason speaks again, and this time it resounds within his bones to say:

_If I’m a dream, then you’ve been sleeping for a very long time._

Jason kisses him for a long time, making up lost time, chaste little pecks that go on for longer each time around. A caress of seeping heat that builds slowly, thawing him out from within. Jason licks into the parting seam of Bruce’s mouth, his tongue all soft. Bruce opens up for him, inhaling rough and loud, ragged like he’s been running a marathon since the day he lay Jason to rest.

Bruce doesn’t pull away, doesn’t know how to when it is drawn out so slow, love being traced into his skin where Jason’s thumb sweeps back and forth. 

_Don’t lose count now, Bruce._

Bruce only knows to lean into every sensation, gentle where Jason chases each kiss with another one. This time harder, messier, deeper. Crushing inside of merely just pushing. Taking in place of asking. If Bruce thinks he was losing it before then he probably isn’t in his right mind to consider what this is truly supposed to mean. He thinks he can live with that if this is what he gets to have as a trade off for his grip on reality.

Jason’s smile as he pulls back is small, almost tentative and shy where he swipes it wetly across the swell of his bottom lip. Bruce can’t look away, caught within the bright look of Jason’s eyes focused just on him.

_We’re almost there._

It’s a surprise to Bruce himself when he comes untouched from this alone. 

Soft little huffs as he takes in each breath, and Bruce doesn’t have a chance in hell of tearing his gaze away from the rise and fall of Jason’s chest. All his life, he seems to say. Taking in each breath like he needs one at all, Bruce is transfixed. 

Jason comes to him in death, looking pale where the light from outside the windows catches his skin, near translucent where flickers form across his shoulders like freckles in life. He looks daringly alive. Flush high across his cheeks, colours filling out from somewhere within him. 

Bruce lets Jason guide his hand, curve of his shoulder down to his arms, over the narrow bones of his wrists to in between the webbing of his fingers. Sometimes he closes down on nothing while sometimes he feels every bit as real as someone living would. His fingertips digging into flesh, sinking down into something soft, something taking shape to become solid beneath his grip.

If asked to imagine what it is like to be with the dead, Bruce wouldn’t have been able to say _like this_. 

Not with Jason lacing their fingers together while he moves, rising up on his knees until there’s just the crown of Bruce’s cock still inside of him. Bruce goes exactly where Jason takes him, like there is any other place where he would rather be. He can feel Jason all around him, soft sigh upon his lips as he sinks down on the hard length of his cock. 

Another inch given, another inch swallowed down whole. 

He fills him up with so much love, pouring into him with each slow grinding thrust. Jason burns hotter than Bruce’s own skin, clutching down around him. There is warmth between the sheets, a special kind of heat that radiates from something much deeper within him. Maybe it’s his soul, if he hasn’t lost what remains with this alone. From the corners of his vision, Jason is blurred by unshed tears welling up. 

Bruce doesn’t notice many things when Jason is with him. His concentration drawn solely to just this boy, one that should be bone and dust, dead and gone. 

Jason is smiling down at him, unwavering even as he rolls his hips. Dark curls swaying when Bruce manages to grind against a particularly sweet spot. There isn’t any sweat across his brows but his skin glistens like he does. Bruce can see through him from one angle, Bruce only sees him as his mouth parts on a moan, and Jason is a solid weight all around him, pressing him deeper into the mattress beneath them.

_Promise me._

He says on Bruce’s cock. 

A ragged breath out, and his exhale ghosts across Bruce’s skin with them so close. 

_Promise me, you’ll always find me._

Bruce draws in a breath, feels his hands close around nothing this time, smoke escaping from between his fingertips and it physically leaves him shaken to the core of him. A promise is a promise nonetheless. And that is real even if nothing else is. 

“Cross my heart and hope to die, Jay. I promise.” 

6.

It's the where, it's the when.

It's the how too.

If Bruce plots every last sighting of Jason on a map, he thinks he could find a pattern to it. Ley lines mark up Gotham and there might even be some kind of science to it if he goes looking to see where they intersect. He has observed Constantine and Zatara in their element within the city limits enough times to figure a few things out for himself.

But he doesn't want to.

Every chance he gets with Jason consumes him.

He lets it. It is too precious not to.

Bruce spends an afternoon in the library with Jason’s head in his lap, Bruce reads out loud _Uncle Abraham's Romance_ by Edith Nesbit to him and wonders if that’s a bit on the nose. Jason’s expression tells him that it’s a lot on the nose but he doesn’t mind, not when he is snuggling in closer to hear the rest of the story. 

Bruce disappears from hosting his own annual gala when Jason leads him by the hand and into his old bedroom. There’s no music or small talk or polite little smiles over the rim of champagne flutes. Instead, there is just Jason on his knees swallowing Bruce down to the hilt. Bruce’s hand as he comes is curling bone-white and tight around a fistful of Jason’s bed sheets. He stays there the rest of the night.

Quiet moments and stolen moments. If this is a physical manifestation of his desire for what’s once-was, some kind of could’ve-been, then he wants to live immersed in it. He can be the frog set in the warm water bath, the one to stay until it boils to death. He is a happier man for it. 

Bruce willingly skips night after night of patrol to keep Jason in his arms.

Bruce also stays out night after night on patrol chasing the ends of Robin's cape until they find themselves at the top of Wayne Tower where Batman gets to crowd his partner against the smooth stone. The drop is deadly if he's thinking of that at all. But he isn't, he is ducking down while Robin stands up on his tip toes to bring their mouths together in a clash. The kiss as they meet, feels a little like a match being lit in the wind.

Some questions go unanswered. Some mysteries stay unsolved. 

Somewhere, Superboy Prime punches a hole through reality. 

The Manor after dark holds still, like a snapshot that is grainy at the edges of the frame. 

The Cave itself is barely alive aside from the low grade hum coming from the servers. 

There is no memorial case taking center stage. Instead, there is just the giant penny, the toy dinosaur, and the oversized Joker playing card in the background like all of this is perfectly normal. It is late enough that even Alfred has retired for the night. Only Bruce remains in the tatters of what is Batman half-strewn over him. The cowl is sitting by the keyboard, the cape is left hanging from the back of the chair to drag against the floor as Bruce shifts in his seat.

He has fallen asleep, his neck tilting at a painful angle as he sits slumped in front of the Batcomputer.

He only stirs when he feels a gentle tap against his knee.

Another tap, and it feels like the toe of a shoe. 

It doesn’t escalate in force or in time, it’s a gentle way to rouse him from his exhaustion. There is a resounding warmth that holds steady as it spreads with each contact. The same kind Bruce has come to expect as he blinks his bleary eyes open to see Jason. He is sitting on the edge of the computer desk, swinging his legs, toe of his wing tip shoes connecting with Bruce on each extension. No pain, not even annoyance on every kick right where it meets Bruce’s knee. 

Bruce smiles at the familiar face looking down at him. 

That’s his boy, and Bruce has seen him coming to him in many forms.

What’s different this time is that Jason is in The Suit, black and white and tailored to him postmortem. The collar is stiff and starched, the tie is a perfect half-Windsor knot at his throat. His hair is combed all straight and neat. It’s been more than six months since he’s buried his son. But he does not forget how he looked when he was laid upon a bed of silk. 

_Wake up, Bruce. It’s time._

Jason is smiling back at him now that he’s got Bruce’s full attention. But the words do not come from the wry twist of his mouth, it comes from all around him. Like he is the message in and of himself. Jason shows him his hands where they are covered in dirt. They look like they _hurt_.

Bruce wants to take them into his own, maybe never let him go, but he goes right through him as he reaches out. Closing down around nothing, not even a wisp.

A sharp shiver runs through him and his eyes are wide, there is the sensation of pins and needles all across his palms and that has never happened before.

_You don’t want to be late._

Jason isn't smoke dissipating into the air around them. Like he doesn't exist. Jason isn't even fading through. Like he's never existed. Jason is taping a finger against his wrist where there isn't a watch sitting around the narrow bone. His hair is becoming wet and flat, lying plastered against his forehead where it is dry before. Droplets and droplets of what has to be rain falling from his cheek like fresh tears from his eyes.

This vision of him is falling apart right at the seams all the same. And that can't be true.

It is a painful visceral thing when Jason looks at Bruce like this is some kind of definitive end.

What convinces Bruce for good, to leave at all, is that he's lived with fear through this entire ordeal. Everything since Jason’s death has been a destructive desperate path of what he knows grieving to be, of lingering on all the wrong things to keep what was never supposed to be kept. And he can see that clearly now, more than ever.

If this is an elaborate lie, a marble lost, a mind left scrambled, he still has to keep the promise that he's made.

From Jason’s first appearance in Wayne Tower to their second chance meeting in Crime Alley to that stolen kiss at the gala to every last kiss after, every subsequent moment sets him further back. Bruce has never once done well with uncertainty. If he is right about any of this, and that’s a pretty big if, contingent on many things that are out of his control— Bruce doesn’t let himself think that far ahead just yet. 

Jason is still smiling at him, sitting on the edge of the desk, and it’s such a familiar sight on it’s own, looking as though he’s never left at all. But there is dirt all over his hands, his fingertips looking bloodied where his nails are cracked and splintered. It’s unfinished business for the living and the dead, and Bruce still has much to do before he can lay this death to rest.

There may be five stages to grief, but Bruce goes through none of it to keep Jason's memory alive.

It’s raining as Bruce starts making the trek up to where Jason should be. 

The smell of fresh turned earth is encapsulating, the scent of rotting leaves left out in giant piles turns it into a miasma. Bruce hasn’t been able to come back to this place in the six months since the burial. He follows the long line of headstones now, and they are all dark with rain. There is the sleek cascade of water from the rim of his umbrella and stray splashes catching the hem of his long coat. 

Bruce comes to a stop to stand before an angel where her hands are clasped together in prayer.

Face downturned, frozen in grief.

Guarding him when Bruce cannot. _Here Lies Jason Todd_ , the headstone writes.

The barren trees rustle where they stand, shaking in the wind and the rain, like the insistent scratch of fingernails against _—_ _Bruce_ , he hears. Faint and muffled and echoing in the longest lowest resounding pitch. It's his name said in Jason's voice. Over and over and over again.

Except it isn’t coming from everywhere around him.

It is coming from one place.

The umbrella falls from his grip as Bruce drops down on both knees. The rain does not stop, does not even slow. He is drenched in seconds while he sinks his hands into the dirt. He tears at tufts of grass, ripping into chunks of mud and clay, digging into the soil packed down by the days and days of rain to have fallen since. He hears it, louder and louder and louder still. 

Bruce, Bruce, _Bruce—_

A hand comes through the wet earth.

“ _—Bruce!_ ”

In death, Jason comes to him not unlike a premonition. Of things to come. Of memories to be made.

In life, not even dying manages to take Jason away from him. When the dead rises from the grave, the living is there to welcome him home. Bruce takes Jason's hand, takes him into his arms. He keeps his promise, and he’s warm where he really should have been cold to the touch.


End file.
